Pigeons, toll roads, hot dogs, Neue Nationalgalerie
My sticky notes from Jesus Christ Kinski by Benjamin Myers:
The author on Kinski's autobiography:
hilarious ... it was a gratuitous litany of the pornographic and the litigious, written with the sole intention of shocking readers.
Kinski on stage fright:
Nerves are for the local am-dram lot, bumbling their way through the Comedy of Errors for the knitting and hearing-aid brigade. A one-man show operates on a different level, one which transcends such simple distractions as 'nerves'.
Kinski on his sanity:
I live freely. And to most people who stuck in unsatisfactory marriages and dismal jobs, that appears insane. To most it is beyond comprehension. If one has to be insane to enjoy freedom, then so be it.
Kinski on life:
There are a thousand things that make life difficult. A million. Taxes, taxies, divorce lawyers, the clap, policemen, mosquitos, heartburn, film producers, psychiatrists, dog owners who let their dogs shit on the pavement, Americans, Vietnamese, Germans, Jewish accountants, Italian mistresses, fascists, Communists, critics, old people, young people, children, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schon, David Lean, my wife's mother, my wife's sister, undercooked Maultaschenm ungrateful agents who turn down beautiful seafood banquets, moronic screenwriters, cheap wine, Japanese cars, clowns, patriots, the godforsaken pop song 'Co-Co' that's always on the wireless, everyone in Hollywood, pigeons, toll roads, hot dogs, Neue Nationalgalerie, Charles Manson, bad singing, writers of novels, cats, scuba divers, students, Mendelssohn, Schoenberg, and John Lennon, rain, toenails, yoghurt, Berlin International Film Festival, Schuhplattler, hippies, train conductors, the wall. [...]
Why does John Lennon make your life difficult?
He doesn't particularly. I just threw his name out there to see if you'd pick up on it. Which — predictably — you did.
On on-stage consciousness:
So you watch yourself from the wings, from the floor, the stalls and the upper circle. You watch yourself up there on stage, observing yourself from the drains in the pissers and the bottoms of bins and ashtrays, from the flat dregs that remain in the twisted-up beer cans that spawned a thousand rancid belches. You watch yourself deliver from beneath the grubby fingernails of the layabouts and the crabs that crawl through their untended groinal gardens.
And from the stage you see yourself out there now, a thousand ghosts of yourself lurking around corners, those big beautiful eyes seeking truth, thick tongue licking its way over strong teeth. Flaxen hair you call 'Viking gold.' Cock of medium size, tucked to one side. You watch yourself from a great distance, a speck of dust on the stage, as thoughts and memories and half-snatched images invade your—
Log-jam your—
and—
Spaghetti. No, not spaghetti.
Yes, spaghetti and fucking gravy.
No, shut up, not that.
The rabble is silent for a moment, and you watch on as—
Spaghetti. Amaretto. You watch as—
Gravy. As you—
Fish platter.
As you—
Tap water. He says he only wants tap water!
And you—
And you—
Forget your words entirely.